THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Sierra Foothill Wine Sip Off

This week, we're pitting neighbors against each other...Story and Villa Toscano wineries.  Both are located in Plymouth, California, about 2 miles apart from each other in the Shenandoah Valley in the heart of Amador County.

Watch the Video!

Story weighs in with a 2006 Miss Zin.  This is a blend of 50% mission grapes and 50% zinfandel.  Villa Toscano brings it with their 2008 old vine zinfandel.  Both wineries dry farm their zin grapes.  That means no water other than what Mother Nature provides.  Some of these vines go back over 100 years.  The area is intensely hot and dry in the summer, baking these vines and providing small, intensely flavored fruit.  It takes a little extra work to extract it.


The resulting wine is a heavy, jammy, spicy, tasting inky wine.  Done right, it's a sublime experience and holds up well to food with big, bold flavors like the steaks at JD's in nearby Sutter Creek or the smoked jalapeño, bacon wrapped poppers at the Dancing Bear in the historic Plymouth Hotel.


Both wines retail in the $20 range but the wineries will be willing to cut a deal in person.  Story has several six packs that can effectively cut the price in half.  I got a case of the Villa Toscano for $99, bringing their price to about $8.25.


Which one is best?  Watch the video, above.  We declared them a tie but we'd drink the heavy, bold Villa Toscano while sitting in front of a roaring fire on a winter night while the Story wine goes better in an outdoor setting thanks to the lightening effect of the mission grapes in their wine.


Cheers!

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

MIDWEST BASEBALL TOUR - LEG 2: St. Louis, Part 1

If you haven’t read Tim’s reports on preparing for this trip (this is his first time planning a trip), be sure to check out what it took to plan and prepare for this trip in a wheelchair.


We leave the Comfort Suites in Newport, Kentucky with no regrets but we really won’t be missing it either. Next time, I think I might be able to get the Embassy Suites nearby at a comparable price.

It’s an all day drive, 384 miles, to get to our next destination, St. Louis. We have a Ford Escape, a non-accessible vehicle, to make the drive in. That means the power chair has been left at home and Tim is using a new manual chair he bought for this trip. He’s manhandled into the front passenger seat, our luggage and the folded-up chair in the back cargo area, and my wife sits in the back seat with the maps in the navigator position.

Watch the Video!

We cross into Indiana heading for Indianapolis to make a stop to see the museum at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It’s about 90 minutes away.

Before we left on the trip, my wife went to the AAA to get maps. Unfortunately, she didn’t check them at the time and the girl at the counter, geographically challenged, gave us maps for Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. None of those states feature our destinations of Cincinnati, St. Louis , or Kansas City (but Kansas comes close!).

Today, we are relying on the map Budget Rent a Car gave us and we exit in Indy to find the speedway. 40 miles later, we figure that either the map or our navigation were off because we never found it and ran out of time. Later, checking the map on the computer, we find that the map was off, placing the speedway about 25 miles west of where it really was. Too bad, I really wanted to see it…nextime I guess.

Ever onward, we stop at a great Love’s Truck stop in Illinois for fuel, sodas, and snacks and then later again in Terre Haute for lunch at a great Steak and Shake restaurant. We later find out that a couple of hundred miles south of us, tornadoes are wreaking havoc on Oklahoma including destroying another Love’s truck stop down there. We just got a little light rain along the way.

Weather is an ongoing concern for us. Local news keeps predicting thunderstorms and we’re concerned over cancelled games and vacation killing inclement weather. We can push back our next two games by one day if necessary, but no more than that.

Coming into the St. Louis area, the first thing you see is the giant Gateway Arch, the tallest structure in the city. It’s off at the Martin Luther King Bridge and into downtown. Our hotel is on 4th Street, right behind the arch, so it’s very easy to find once we’re in downtown.

For this leg of the trip, we’re at the Drury Plaza Inn at the Arch. We walk into the beautiful, large marbled lobby and check in. The room they give us has a small window with an interior view which we don’t like so it’s back to the lobby to ask for a better room. They give us a two-room suite on the 7th floor. It still has a small window but at least this one has a view of downtown and the Old Courthouse.

Window aside, it’s a great suite. A separate bedroom with a king size bed. A nice sized living area with a large (queen size) sofabed and recliner. Two 42” flat screen TV’s…one in each room…with a large number of channels to choose from including several HD channels. A large bathroom with a roll-in shower. A small dry bar with microwave, fridge (not honor bar), and a coffee maker.

The hotel also has a good number of freebies to go along with the room. We take advantage of the first with some wine, beer, and cocktails along with a light dinner in the lobby (chicken wings, nachos, egg rolls, salad, and veggies). In the morning is a hot breakfast featuring scrambled eggs, biscuits & gravy, sausage, pancakes, yogurt, fruit, toast, bagels, donuts, and muffins along with coffee, juice, and milk. Starting at 10 in the morning, it’s all the popcorn and soda you want until 10 at night. In the room, you have free wifi or free wired Ethernet high speed Internet access (your choice), 60 minutes of free domestic long distance, and 15 minutes of free long distance to Mexico or Canada.

There is a nice pool and spa area on the 8th floor with a good size pool and two hot tubs overlooking the river along with a decent fitness room. The guest laundry is adjacent…$1.50 to wash and $1.25 to dry.

Back in the lobby is a stunning diorama of Lewis, Clark, and Sacajawea exploring the new territory with a waterfall and pond. Lovely hotel…one of the best I’ve ever been to. It’s rated #1 in St. Louis on Tripadvisor with good reason. Rates are reasonable too…we paid $150 for our suite, adjacent to the arch and two blocks from the stadium.

After breakfast the next morning, we go over to the Jefferson Expansion Memorial National Park behind the hotel. The arch is huge, stunning, and inaccessible. Built in the early 60’s, it’s debatable if the architect, Eero Saarinen, should have thought about accessibility (Universal Design was really in its infancy at that time) so we’ll let that slide.

An underground visitor’s center is under the arch. There is a fee to enter but if you have the America the Beautiful Access Pass or Golden Access Pass, you can enter free (you get the pass at the entrance to any national park if you’re disabled for free).

Tim and I elect to send Letty up to the top to take pictures while we watch a film on how the arch was constructed. I buy package deals for all of us that includes a riverboat cruise at noon. Letty goes up in the tiny capsule to see the observation deck. The trip includes 85 steps. That, and the tiny door plus small interior of the capsule rules this out for non-walkers.

The documentary is vertigo inducing as we watch the workmen put the final touches on the arch, 630 feet above the ground.

Meeting back up in the lobby, we have some time to explore the gift shop before going down to the adjacent riverfront for the cruise. Well, it’s adjacent if you can walk down stairs…

I ask at the information counter how we get down there in the wheelchair. They show me on a map how I can go either way and detour down to the water. It looks short on the map.

In reality, it’s a half-mile, unmarked trek to get around. We finally find a way by taking an elevator down to the bottom floor of a parking garage, exiting through their ramp, walking down a street to the river, then doubling back to the dock.

This is just ridiculous. Take a look at the pictures…it would be very easy to build a ramp down the hillside to the dock. I can’t believe it is this inaccessible.

On the dock, we find things accessible enough. We get spots on the bow of the boat and leave on our cruise. The tour takes us north past a floating casino; then on to the original power plant built for the 1904 World’s Fair (still in use); numerous docks loading and unloading barges; back down south to get great views of the city; seeing a wrecked barge up against one of the bridges; and finally coming back to the dock after an hour. There are also numerous barges being pushed up the river and pulled the other way filled with all manner of cargo. It’s an interesting trip.

Now, we have to make our way back up which entails another ½ mile trek. We decide to go the other way. It’s just as long.

Being lunch time, we decide to eat at Max and Erma’s, a nice little place attached to the hotel which has a $10.99 special. Choose an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert. It’s very good and we can’t finish it all.

After lunch, we go to the room to rest up and get ready for the game.

There's more to come, watch for Part 2 coming very soon!

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

FIELDS OF DREAMS: Mazmanian Field - Walnut, California

Our first collegiate baseball stadium review here is a local stadium…for us…that is just a jewel sitting in the hills of Walnut, California.

Looking over from the snack bar, I can see the land that is proposed for an NFL stadium in the nearby City of Industry. Right now, that stadiums chance of being built are slim to none.

Here, on the campus of Mt. San Antonio College…the local community college for the area…voters a decade ago approved a $201 million dollar bond to improve the college infrastructure here.  A few million dollars was used to build the new baseball stadium along with the adjacent softball field.

The field features stunning views of the rolling hills that separate Mt. SAC from its next door neighbor, Cal Poly – Pomona. On clear days, the 10,000 ft. plus peak of Mt. Baldy looms above those hills.

Just about the entire stadium is accessible. A tunnel allows access to the field under the stands, a ramp leads to the wheelchair seating at the top of the bowl, and even the press box is fully wheelchair accessible.

Home to the Mt. SAC Mounties, several players have gone on to the majors from here including Brett Tomko and Shawn Wooten. This year, 2012, the University of La Verne is also calling it home while their new stadium is being built. You can catch Milwaukee Brewers Manager Ron Roenicke’s nephew, Bryce, playing right field for the Leos in those games. Admission is free.

Here are the stats:

Opened:  2006

Surface:  Grass

Construction cost:  $7.6 million

Capacity:  500

Field dimensions: Left center – 390; Center field – 400; right center – 390

Home team: Mt. Sac Mountaineers (Mounties)  2006 – present; University of La Verne Leopards, 2012

Events attended:  1 game

Regular seating includes theater style seats behind homeplace and for companions in the wheelchair section plus back-supported bleacher seating down the first and third base lines.

It’s a beautiful, modern stadium featuring some great college baseball and a lot of amenities you don’t expect at this level.

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

MIDWEST BASEBALL TOUR - LEG 1: Cincinnati

If you haven’t read Tim’s reports on preparing for this trip (this is his first time planning a trip), be sure to check out what it took to plan and prepare for this trip in a wheelchair.


Now that the planning and booking is done, it’s time to go. We start off at Ontario Airport, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles. It’s a 6:55am departure meaning we wake up at 4am and rush to get going. We arrive at the airport at 5:30am.

Watch the Video for this Trip!

After check in (at the curb) and security, we head to the gate. I ask the gate agent if there are any better seats available on the plane, we’re in row 19 of the Continental 737, and none are available. Waiting at the gate to pre-board, the crew that would have to take Tim to his seat balk at having to transport him to row 19 and says they will load the plane first, then us.

Really? Row 19 is that bad? I’ve had airlines sit us in the back of the plane with no complaints, but…

This gets us bulkhead seats when they kick the people assigned there out (not my idea, theirs) but in this day and age of paying for every piece of luggage, being last means the overheads are full and everyone seethes as it takes time for us to get seated. A friendly flight attendant puts our bag up in first class…it’s important to have on the plane because it has medication and bathrooming gear we’ll need on the flight…and off we go.

We change planes in Houston and have no problems pre-boarding on the second flight to Cincinnati. The flights themselves are fine, comfortable, and on time but I did not care for the minor boarding fiasco at Ontario. Note to self: do not use Continental (soon to be part of United) out of Ontario anymore.

We arrive at the Cincinnati airport, which is actually in Kentucky, at 5pm local time, pick up our rental car (Ford Escape), and head to our hotel, the Comfort Suites in Newport, Kentucky…just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

The room at the hotel is a “studio” suite, which means a larger room but not really a suite. There’s a king-size bed, sofa bed, and accessible restroom with bathtub and portable shower chair provided by the hotel. A hot breakfast (waffles, biscuits and gravy) is provided but it’s just adequate. In fact that word describes the hotel…adequate. Not great but not bad. It’s a bit expensive for that at around $150 per night.

After settling in, we walk to the nearby area of shops and restaurants known as the Levee at Newport. It’s a very lively area and we find a real gem, a branch of Munich’s Hofbrauhaus with a real German beer garden out back.

It’s small by Munich standards and the sausages are good but not quite on par with Germany, but here we go…an honest-to-goodness German beer garden three blocks from our hotel with its own brewery producing real Hofbrau beer, served in the liter sized glasses just like in Munich.

This is the perfect way to end a long day of travelling so we walk over to the riverfront and head back to the hotel.

It’s a Saturday and our tickets to the ball game are for Sunday so we take a drive to Louisville to see the Louisville Slugger Museum and take the factory tour. A 90 minute drive, we pass the Kentucky Speedway and a mysterious sign that states “site of fatal bus crash. May 14, 1988.”

It turns out that on that date, the worst bus accident in the country’s history took place when a drunk driver hit a church school bus. 27 people were killed, 24 injured, and several of the victims banded together and eventually formed Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

Once in Louisville, we pass a minor league stadium for the Louisville Bats, an affiliate of the Reds. You’d think they’d be called the Sluggers, but no. The stadium is named Louisville Slugger Stadium, however.

Not hard to find, just head to the riverfront, turn left, and look for a giant bat sticking up over the skyline. Park in the structure in the back and head into the Hillerich and Bradsby Company, better known as the makers of that necessary piece of sporting wood, the Louisville Slugger.

Inside is paradise for baseball fans. A long, narrow lobby from the front to the back of the building includes a room for special exhibits, the bat vault (where every major leaguer has a template bat locked up…the “Fort Knox” of baseball), sample bats made to major league player specifications that you can test swing, a batting cage (10 pitches for a dollar) where you can try out a major league players bat, a current league standings board, a gift shop, and that giant bat out front.

All very interesting but the main attraction is what you actually have to pay for, the museum and factory tour. It’s ten dollars for adults and you get to enter the museum and take an informative and entertaining tour of the factory (no cameras allowed on the factory floor).

Entering the museum, the first thing to see is one of the very first bats made by Bud Hillerich for Pete Browning, one of baseball’s first professional players, in 1884. Browing quickly got three hits with it in the next game and christened it the “Louisville Slugger.” Next is an area where you can hold a game-used bat. Gloves are mandatory. Tim held David Ortiz’s bat. Me? I went with Mickey Mantle.

Several other artifacts are on display. Honus Wagner’s jersey and bat; Joe Dimaggio’s bat; Babe Ruth’s bat; and on and on. The factory tour shows each step of the process, from lathing the wood, burning in the insignia to lacquering the bat. We are informed that players are very particular about their bats. For example, Ted Williams had one person make his bats and they had to have eight lines of grain per inch. With the highest batting average on record, Williams must have known what he was talking about.

At the end of the tour, everybody gets a small wooden bat to take home as a souvenir. One of the best 10 bucks I’ve ever spent.

On our way out of Louisville, we go by Churchill Downs…a week to the day after the Kentucky Derby…but couldn’t find any parking so we left town and went back home.

For dinner, we head down the river to the Beer Sellar. We thought it was a restaurant, but it’s just a bar so we have a two dollar, pre-game beer special and chat with some of the fans getting ready to go to tonight’s game. We’re not going until tomorrow, but we have some fun talking and then watching them depart by boat from the adjacent dock to go to the stadium across the river.

Actual food is found at Bulldogs, just around the corner, where we have some delicious fish and chips while watching the game going on across the river on TV. It’s interesting when someone hits a home run, you can hear the fireworks coming in through the windows and on the television. You can also hear the cheers coming from all the numerous bars in the area and from the stadium across the water.

Sunday…Game Day. This trip is all about baseball and the main attraction is the game. It’s Mother’s Day and we’re going to see the Reds host the Chicago Cubs. It’s about a mile walk to the game. Over the bridge to Ohio, then along the riverfront to the stadium.

Behind the stadium is an art installation of a giant paddle wheel, along with a couple dozen posts that vent steam on a random basis. There are also speakers in the posts where you can hear people on river boats.

We are behind the stadium in center field and there is no accessible entrance here. We have to walk around, 2 blocks, to home plate to go to the Will Call booth, pick up our tickets, and enter.

Great American Ball Park is a smallish feeling stadium (42,000 capacity) overlooking the Ohio River towards Covington, Kentucky. As you would expect, Red is the dominant color scheme. There is a faux river boat in the outfield and fireworks shoot out of its smoke stacks at the beginning of the game, when a Reds player hits a home run, and upon a Reds victory. Steam comes out when the home team pitcher strikes out an opponent.

The food choices here are basic and mediocre. Hot dogs, pizza, and burgers are mostly it, with ice cream and candy for dessert. There is pre-made sushi at a little convenience store by home plate, but we don’t want any sushi that’s not made in front of us. The tap beer selection is vast and reasonably priced. Since we’re walking home, we take full advantage of it.

Our seats are at the top of the field level deck, about 2/3 the way from home plate to first base. There is a slight overhang from the club deck above but it does not block our view in any meaningful way. The price for this seat is $47 for this premium game against the Cubs. If you go to see a less meaningful opponent, say the Marlins, it would be five dollars less. There is accessible seating throughout the stadium, from the bleachers to the nosebleeds, along with the more premium seating on the field and club levels. The lowest price is $5 going up to $235 for the first five rows behind home plate. We had no problems getting more than one companion seat.

Ryan Dempster steps on the mound for the Cubs to start the game. There’s no score until the second inning when Dempster gives up an RBI double to Johnny Gomes. The Reds, led by pitcher Mike Leake, have the game in hand until Leake goes wild in the 7th inning, giving up a run on an errant pitch. The Cubs will go on to take the lead by one but the Reds take it back in the bottom of the inning on a Joey Votto 3-run homer. The Reds win the game 5 to 3.

We decide to walk around the area of the stadium to see what festive activities we can find. The answer? None. It’s dead quiet in downtown Cincinnati so we head back across the bridge to Newport to find a lively atmosphere and settle in at an Irish Pub for dinner.

And that’s a wrap for Cincy. The highlights were the baseball game, of course; the fascinating and fun Louisville Slugger museum and tour; and the Kentucky side of the river across from Cincinnati is a lively and fun entertainment district. This leg of the tour left me with a strong desire to visit Kentucky again and explore it a little more fully.

Stay tuned as we head out to leg two of this Midwest Baseball Tour…St. Louis, Missouri.

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 – Darryl Musick

The Cocktail Hour - Beer Taste Off

For today's Cocktail Hour, I went over to Trader Joe's and raided their single serving beer shelf (yes, they have one) and today we're putting them to the test in the first World on Wheels Taste Off.

The beers we're tasting are two Mission Street varieties...the Blonde Ale and the Pale Ale...both brewed in Paso Robles, California; Great Scot, an organic pale ale from Scotland (it's even labeled Vegan...though I suppose all beer would be); and Sapporro Reserve Ale from Japan.

Here's the taste off video:

And...just like "American Idol,", here's the results video:

Results:
1 - Great Scot (Tim's Favorite)
2 - Mission St. Pale Ale
3 - Mission St. Blonde Ale (Letty's Favorite)
4 - Sapporro Reserve Ale (Darryl's Favorite)

-Darryl

SPRING TRAINING: Arizona

In the midst of Tim’s junior year of college, we finally caught a break…spring break, that is.  This year, it coincided with Spring Training, something we’ve never done but always wanted to try.

Tim had just turned 21, so we told him we’d take him to the casinos of Nevada to celebrate.  After a couple of days there (Tim actually had some luck on the Roulette wheel), we headed across Hoover Dam and into Arizona.

Looking at the Cactus League schedule for that time, we saw that our team…the Angels…were to be playing the Texas Rangers at the Ranger’s facility, Surprise Stadium.  The stadium was on the way, so we stopped by and picked up tickets for the next day’s game.

It was an easy and quick transaction at the box office and had no problems at all securing a wheelchair seat plus two companion seats about 2/3 of the way from home plate to first base at the top of the field level seating bowl.

It’s a bit of a drive from Surprise to Phoenix.  Everything is a bit of a drive in Phoenix.

Our hotel would be the Phoenix Inn and Suites, a decent place with large rooms and roll-in showers.  Now, it’s called Hotel Highland at Biltmore.

For dinner, we went to Coyote Grill on Bell Road in Scottsdale, a very good place…at least it was.  It’s now been replaced by a Scottish-themed Hooter’s knockoff.

The next day was spent lounging around the pool, waiting for game time.  Tim likes to get to games right when the gates open, so we left the hotel around 5:00 for the 7:30 game.  Good thing we did because the freeways stopped a ways before Surprise.  Traffic was a nightmare on those surface streets that were just not designed for the amount of cars the ever-expanding Phoenix area was dumping on them. 

We arrived about 6:30, put on our red Angels shirts and hats, found our seats and settled in for the game. 

It’s a relaxed atmosphere at a spring training game.  The managers of the teams actually sit on the field behind home plate instead of the dugout to better see how their players’ forms are. After all, these are training sessions for them.

While a number of big stars take the field at the beginning, they are rotated off after a couple of innings so that new players, rookies, and minor leaguers can take the field and be assessed.

Still, it’s a baseball game.  Beer, hot dogs, 7^th inning stretch…that’s all still there.  The night we went the crowd set a new attendance record at the stadium…over 12,000 in attendance with the majority wearing red and rooting for the Angels.

The Angels we on to win and we left happy.  As for the prices, it can get a bit spendy. I was expecting minor league prices but in actuality, it’s somewhere between what you’d spend at a minor league game and a regular season game.

The next morning, we drove over to Tempe to see the Angels’ facility at Tempe Diablo Stadium.  There was no game but the team was working out.  Watching the workout was free and the access into the seating bowl presents no barriers to those in wheelchairs.  In this pre-2008 season workout, it was easy to get up close and personal with such players as Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson, and Chone Figgins who have all gone on to other teams or retirement.

It’s a loose and friendly atmosphere and you can actually chat with the players and coaches.  Many will come to the sidelines to autograph balls or other mementos.  First base coach Alfredo Griffin took a bucket of balls and a Sharpie which he used to sign balls and toss to fans in the stands one at a time.

It was a fun way to welcome baseball back for the year and to get excited for another season of our favorite sport.  The Angels would go on to win their division but get knocked out by the Red Sox in the first round of playoffs.

For more information, see our Field of Dreams report on Surprise Stadium and visit cactusleague.com for Arizona Spring Training information.

-Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

FIELDS OF DREAMS: Jay Littleton Ball Park, Ontario, California

Out in the hot, dusty, and industrial flatlands of the Inland Empire...in a neighborhood that's more barrio than middle america...this stadium rises like a mirage.  A throwback to another era, Jay Littleton Ball Park is a relic of a ballpark, perfectly preserved and lovingly maintained.  First the facts...

Stats
Year built: 1935
Surface: Grass
Construction cost: $20,000
Capacity: 2,500
Field dimensions: Left field: 347, Center field: 402 ft., Right field: 347
Home teams: California Angels (Pacific Coast League - Spring Training) 1937-1942; Ontario Orioles (Sunset League) 1947, Chaffey High School - present
Events attended: two games

An antique, wooden stadium with covered grandstand, the park now hosts only amatuer ball but it would be a mistake to say it's seen better days.  Step through the entrance and it's like going back in time.  Cozy and relaxing, the bleachers invite fans to sit back, relax and comisserate over a game.

It's such a perfect example of an old-time stadium that Hollywood has been a regular visitor here.  "The Babe," "A League of Their Own," and "The X-Files" have all used it as a set.

For wheelchairs, there are two spots reserved right behind home plate, although just about anywhere in the front row would accomodate one.  Tickets?  Not here, if they do charge admission to anything, they weren't at the tournament we attended.  Just walk right in.

Although there is a full-kitchen installed behind home plate...underneath the old press box...a taco truck sometimes sets up just outside the gate with delicious carne asada and chicken tacos plus some very good funnel cakes.  In fact, the night we were there we declared them the best funnel cakes we've ever had.  The tacos are $1.25 each, funnel cakes, $3.99.


If the taco truck isn't there, don't worry.  Go two blocks west on 4th Street to Mi Chula Linda for great tacos and burritos to go and take with you to the game.

The only downside to this beautiful ballpark is that no local minor league or college teams use it.  It would be perfect for a D-III team like La Verne to use, especially since their stadium is about to be torn down in the next few years.  The Long Beach Armada, taking a season off in a dispute with their landlord, should consider moving here where they could make an alliance with other Ontario pro teams like the Ontario Reign hockey team.  I know I'd be a regular here if someone like that would move in.

For now, come on over just about any Saturday night during baseball season and enjoy a game by some of the proud amatuers that now play here.  Grab some tacos and a funnel cake and you're set.

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved